Staff Present:
Jacky Eubanks, and Connie Killian from the Catawba County Planning Department
and John Kenny, consultant from the Western Piedmont Council of Governments
(WPCOG).

Chair Huffman
called the meeting to order at 7:03 pm. He announced that this meeting
was a continuation of the meeting that was held on Tuesday, October 14,
2003.

He turned
the meeting over to Mr. John Kenny, consultant from the Western Piedmont
Council of Governments.

Mr. Kenny
reminded the Committee of the County's three residential zoning districts
- R-1, R-2, and R-3. He explained what type of housing that was allowed
in each of these districts. He said that there needed to be places in
the County as a whole where mobile homes could be placed. He asked the
Committee if there were any reasons they wanted to change the zoning to
not have mobile homes within this area.

Mr. Eubanks
reminded the Committee members that a previous zoning map that had been
given to them showed 99.9% of the acres in this area being zoned R-2 Residential.
He also pointed out that the permits for single and double wide mobile
homes had gone down in number to almost nothing in the past couple of
years. He reiterated that areas still needed to be provided for affordable
housing.

One of the
suggestions made was a possible mobile home overlay district as was done
in the Town of Catawba.

There was
discussion among the Committee members concerning the differences of a
doublewide and modular home. Mr. Kenny explained the differences to the
members.

Mr. Kenny
stated that he was hearing support from the Committee members for rezoning
some of this area to R-1 and R-3 and not keeping R-2.

Mr. Cloninger
stated that he would like to see this area go R-3 to allow some affordable
housing for some of the larger tracts. This would enable landowners who
might want to subdivide for their children a place to live in the future.

The area
for potential R-1 zoning was discussed by the Committee members. It was
the consensus of the Committee that the following zoning proposals be
made: R-1 would be North of the railroad to I-40 and West (remainder of
Catawba SAP to the West) of B & B Rd./Hewitt Rd. all the way to Hwy.
10. The area between the railroad and B & B Rd/Hewitt Rd. would be
R-3 zoning. This would reflect an approximate 75%-25% ratio.

The Committee
felt that areas in the District had plenty of mobile homes and there were
areas that they could still be placed that would be grandfathered, i.e.
Boggs Rd., Cinderella St. (Note: these areas will be subject to new zoning
criteria and mobile homes would not be able to be placed if not zoned
R-2 or R-3)

Mr. Kenny
stated that a map will be made by Mr. Starr showing their proposals and
mailed to them prior to the next meeting for them to review in case they
may want to make changes or want to discuss further.

Mr. Kenny
discussed guiding principles concerning retirement which he stated are
very general statements. With retirement homes in mind, he stated that
all they could do was encourage developers to construct the right type
of building, i.e. handicapped accessible bathrooms, entrances, etc.

A Committee
member suggested that they could encourage development of duplexes for
retirees. The question was asked if our lot sizes were large enough to
encourage the development for duplexes. Also, multi-units were discussed.

The question
was asked if someone wanted to do a large retirement center and our zoning
wouldn't allow it, could something be done to allow it.

Mr. Eubanks
stated that with our new UDO being developed, conditional zoning could
be used as a tool to allow this.

It was also
decided by the committee that duplexes should be allowed in all residential
zones.

The next
meeting is scheduled for November 11, 2003 at Claremont City Hall.